We all love and need heroes in our lives. Because what heroes do is they emulate something that we want, something that we need, something that we’re looking forward to. Just think about heroes that you have in your life. What heroes are you attracted to. You see I think we’re attracted to heroes for four different reasons. Heroes have four things that we need. Those same four things exist inside of the human heart in the form of the conscience that God created in us. According to the Bible, the conscience prompts us in four areas and in those four areas those are the same things that heroes do. So when we see a hero in one way or another, whether it’s a sports hero or we see a hero who has done some champion thing in life, we look at that and we go “yes!”, and it touches us in our hearts. Because in our hearts we need these four things. In your heart you have a conscience that prompts you to do what’s right, to deal with wrongs, to be honest, and to care about others. God has built that inside of you, given you a conscience in your heart. And so when we think about heroes, we think about people who do that. So when we hear about a hero who has failed, we go “oh.” It grips our heart.
Now in every one of us there’s a hero vacuum or a hero space I should call it. That’s the space between where I am right now and where the hero is. I’m attracted to that hero because I want to fill in the space. I want to be like that person. Today we’re going to look at heroes, at one hero in God’s word. We’re going to look at Genesis 6 and we’re going to look at Noah, Noah’s response to God, and how God worked in his life. As we do, we’re going to see what made him a hero and how we can apply that in our own lives.
But I don’t want to take you to Genesis 6 first. I want to take you to Hebrews 11. Because God in His word in the New Testament reminds us of heroes so that we’ll be motivated to go back to the Old Testament and learn from them. They’re not just a history story from the past, but they are an inspiration for the future. Because when there’s that space between you and the hero, you’re inspired to do better. You’re excited to do more. There's something that takes place in our lives that we need. So let’s look at Hebrews.
Hebrews 11:7 says these words: By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
Notice the first two words of that verse – by faith. And the last two words of that verse – by faith. There’s something about Noah that made him different than anyone else. It's going to have to do with his faith. But how is that faith worked out for him? See there’s something being said in the book of Hebrews that says go back and look. Go back and check out that story of Noah because something important is there for your life and for my life. Let’s go back now and let’s see what God has to say in Genesis 6. Let’s pick it up in verse 8. Because we’re told who this guy Noah really is.
It says – But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah. Three things. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.
First of all, he was a righteous man. He did what was right. Remember I mentioned that part of the conscience is this motivation to do the right thing. Sometimes it’s just turn off the light when you leave the bathroom kind of things. But many times it’s do the right thing to overcome the challenges that we face in life. Do what’s right. Noah was that kind of guy. He did the right thing. He made choices to do what was right when the wrong was very present for him and available. But he chose to do what’s right (that’s the first thing).
Second thing says that he was blameless. In his relationships with people he had integrity. That when he told somebody he was going to do it, he did it. When he said he was going to be there at a certain time, he was there. When he was given a task, he was reliable. He had integrity. He was blameless before others.
And thirdly, he walked with God. In fact I would suggest he’s the only one who walked with God except for his family. He and his family were the only ones walking with God during that time. And that’s how Noah was able to hear God’s voice. Because God’s going to speak to him. You hear God’s voice when you walk with God. So every morning when you get up and you open the word and you say, “God, I want to walk with you today. Can you show me what that looks like today?” And God points out a verse in scripture about just doing the right thing. And then you head off in your day and you see someone who’s doing the wrong thing and you realize this is an opportunity for me to walk with God to make a statement about that wrong that’s taking place. So we’re able to speak into something.
Or maybe you’re reading God’s word and He’s speaking to you and giving you some ideas that you’re able to share with someone else in the course of the day. I was just reading in my Bible this morning that. And you have something to share. You’re walking with God and then God is able to use you. When you pray in the morning and say, “God, how can I walk with you today? How would you use me today? I want to be used by you. I want to see where you’re working today.” So now in the course of your day your spiritual eyes are opened so that you see someone who is hurting and you go over and comfort them because you’re participating in what God is doing. You’re walking with the Lord.
That’s the kind of guy that Noah was. He walked with God. He had this connection with God. And because he had that connection with God, He could hear God’s voice. God was able to speak to him. God wants to do that in your life and my life today as we walk with Him.
But what’s really remarkable about this story is that Noah did all of those things in the context of the world that he lived. A world that had a lot of problems, a lot of bad things going on. So I want to go back now to the first part of the passage in Genesis 6 and see what the context is, how the world was. What did the world look like when Noah was living in it at that time?
It says in Genesis 6:1-7 – When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive.
The words sons of God sometimes refer to angels. So these might be fallen angels. It seems to me that’s the case given the context that’s going on in this passage. Others would suggest this is the line of Seth versus the line of Cain that are coming together. I’m not exactly sure. But notice that they were attracted to these women. So we’re talking about this first stage of family life. When you’ve got a young man attracted to a young woman and they’re attracted to the woman because they look attractive. Very important to note. We’ll come back to that in a minute. And they took as their wives any they chose. So they just picked wives as they chose. There doesn’t seem to be this sense of I’m going to find the right person for me. I’m going to find someone who looks good, makes me feel good. And that’s what they did.
Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim… Now the Nephilim or the Anakim, these were the giants in the land. We don’t know a lot about them, which leaves a lot of room for conjecture in our thinking. So there can be all these theories about who they are. They seem to be these giants of some sort in the land. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown, or men who had a name. These are the celebrities. These are the champions.
What takes place in this passage is we have the Nephilim who were the big guys. They were the heroes that the world puts out there and says look at how big they are. Look at how strong they are. These are the world’s heroes. We’re going to see a godly hero in Noah in a few minutes, but first we’re going to see the world’s heroes. They’re out there. They’re called celebrities today. Whether a sports celebrity or they’re movie stars or they are singers. They are these celebrities that are out there that are the people you emulate. In fact the world will put them out there as the heroes. Be like these people. We’ll come back to them a moment too.
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
The earth had taken a real dive here morally. I want you to see that the emphasis in the passage is made on this attack of the family. There’s an attack made on the family in its first stage. The first stage of a family is when a young man is attracted to a young woman. The two things that are mentioned there in the passage are that the girls were attracted and there’s this sense of giants, of celebrities that are there. So often people will be attracted to each other for the wrong reasons. For that good feeling that it makes me feel. I just enjoy being with this person. It makes me tingle all over when I’m with them or when I’m not. Just this internal sense that’s drawing them together. And right in the very first stage of family development Satan is able to get into that and create some damage.
If we look at the society at this point, every intention, every thought of their heart was evil. There was all kinds of dishonesty. There was violence we’re going to read about. There was all kinds of evil going on. What takes place in a person’s life or in this case a society’s life is that things get worse and worse and worse and worse until demonic activity takes place.
We should talk about that just for a moment. Because when we talk about demons you have to understand demons don’t have bodies. They’re sexless. And in order for a demon to do his work, he has to take over some body. That’s why remember in the story when Jesus was healing the man from the demons and the demons spoke out of the man and they said, “If you’re going to send us out, send us into the pigs.” They have to have a place to go. So Jesus said, “Go,” and that man was healed from the torment of these demons in his life. But those demons went into the pigs and destroyed them. They all ran off the cliff. That is the destructive things that take place in a person’s life or in society’s life when things get so bad that people are opening themselves up to the demons that can create huge problems in a person’s life. We call it addiction. God calls it stronghold.
If you’re addicted to pornography or you’re addicted to alcohol or you’re addicted to work, what you’ve done is you’ve opened yourself up to demonic activity that drives you further and further away from what God has for you. It creates this spiritual stronghold that is impossible to get out of. I just can’t overcome this. I need this thing in my life in order to get to the next day. Yet God creates spiritual breakthroughs in people’s lives. To try to bring someone out of an addiction just using human resources without going into the spiritual is futile. Because the person just quickly goes back to their problem. You have to have the spiritual strength that God provides.
There’s that one story Jesus told about the person who there were demons and she got all the demons out and she swept her house clean. But when the demons left they realized nothing was there and they came back with more demons to take over her life. Jesus is just describing what happens if you just try to deal with it on a physical plain. You think you’re getting rid of the demons, but if you don’t have something else inside you are missing out. And not only will your life become more and more wicked and dangerous and overwhelming, but it’s taking place even in society here in those times. And that’s what makes Noah’s life shine so brightly. Because the world is so, so dark.
It’s in that moment that God is going to speak to Noah and He’s going to talk to him and He’s going to address him. But first we are introduced to another family. It’s a family passage that we see here in this section.
It says in verse 10 – And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. They’re all married, so they have three wives. It's very interesting to see how God is going to save a family. He’s not just working in individuals lives. It's a family unit. In fact if we go back to Hebrews 11:7 it mentions the family again. It says – By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. God wants to save families. That’s why it’s so important for godliness to be a part of a home, to be part of what’s going on.
Let me just talk to you as parents for just a moment. I figure you got to about age nine or ten as a child’s growing to teach them about heroes. This is why I say this. When a child reaches about nine or ten, they develop the ability to have critical thinking. Their development moves that direction. So now at nine or ten years old they start at this God-given stage of being able to accept values for themselves, to make judgements about things, to determine for themselves what is right and what is wrong. To decide and evaluate things in whether they’re going to hold onto those things or not. Now when they hit nine or ten years old what happens to them is that they’re going to be looking for heroes. If all they’ve learned their lifetime so far is things from YouTube, from the public school, from their friends, from watching movies then they’ve got those heroes lined up for them. So now in their critical thinking they’re starting to draw from those heroes in the world to determine where they want to go and who they’re going to be.
So I suggest as parents you’ve got from now until your child is between nine and ten years old to teach them about biblical heroes so they understand the principles. There’s only about fifty biblical heroes in God’s word. There’s probably about 200 Bible stories in God’s word. As we study those Bible stories and as we understand those heroes, each one provides for us a message that we need in order to move forward. We’re going to learn today the message that we learn from Noah’s life. But our children need those at preschool and elementary age so that when they get to that critical thinking and they start evaluating the world they have something to work with, something to understand.
If you’re a young person listening today and you’re trying to live in a world that’s getting worse and worse and worse, you need to understand biblical heroes. Because each one of the biblical heroes shares an important lesson that we all need that’s going to move us forward. That’s what we’re going to learn today as we look into Noah’s life. What did he do and how did he respond, and what lessons can we learn from him as a hero?
If we continue on, it says in Genesis 6:11-14 – Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.
Let’s just pause right there. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Because there are two important lessons we learn from Noah that we want to teach our children when they’re young, we want to teach them when they’re old, and we want to embrace for ourselves.
Lesson number one is that Noah did the right thing in the midst of a society that was doing the wrong thing. Only one person, one family did what was right even when other people were doing the wrong thing. You just have to realize that what made Noah a hero is that he listened to the voice of the Lord and did the right thing even when other people were doing the wrong thing. Other people are doing it, we are not. We’re going to follow the Lord. He did what was right and he obeyed the Lord completely in his life.
The second thing we see about Noah’s life is that Noah obeyed God even though he didn’t understand everything he needed to do. You don’t have to have it all figured out. Sometimes today parents believe that they must help their children understand everything before they obey. I would suggest that sometimes we need to teach our children how to obey before they understand so they can learn how to trust, so they can learn how to obey. It’s not about figuring it all out because God doesn’t do that with us. We don’t figure it all out.
God says, “You’re going to build a boat, an ark out of gopher wood.”
You’ve got to imagine Noah saying, “What’s an ark?”
And God saying, “It's a big boat.”
And Noah saying, “What’s a boat?”
And God says, “It's a boat. It floats in the water.”
And Noah’s saying, “Why am I building a boat out here on a mountainside or in my backyard? There’s no water around here.” There’s a lot of questions that Noah did not understand. Noah didn’t ask the questions. He went forward and he built the boat.
I want to suggest that God has an ark for you to build. God has a purpose for your life. He has something He wants for you to do. It might be totally counterculture. There may be things you don’t even understand about it. But God wants you to obey Him, to follow Him because He wants to do something big in your life.
Hebrews 11:7 tells us this. If we go back to Hebrews 11 it says that by faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen. He had never seen rain. God says it’s going to rain. And Noah says, “What is rain?” Remember up to this point there was a mist that watered the ground, the Bible said earlier in Genesis. He had never seen come up out of the ground like is going to come now or the canopy of water that’s… He’d never seen all of that collapse. What is a flood? I don’t know. It's things he hadn’t seen before. That’s what’s going to take place.
Well let’s read on here in Genesis 6. God gives him instructions on what to do and how to build this huge place. He says to him – Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. So it has rooms in it. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die.
So this ark was a huge boat. If we were to translate this into feet and yards then we would describe this boat as it’s 300 cubits. That’s 450 feet. That’s 1 ½ football fields long. This is one big boat. It's four stories tall. It has several different layers. Because each one of these rooms has got to contain different animals. You’ve got the bird rooms, so you’ve got all these different birds in different rooms. Then you’ve got the livestock rooms, so then all the different livestock in those rooms. Then you’ve got the reptile rooms and all those different reptiles. Maybe you have dinosaur rooms where all the dinosaurs are going to be. You have wild animal rooms where the wild animals are going to be. You’ve got lots of rooms. And then you’ve got to have rooms for all the people to live. This is one big ark that God is creating. God has a big plan in mind for you. He wants you to do something big. Your job is just to obey. Noah doesn’t even know all that’s going on. His job is just do the work and to follow God’s instructions.
As we continue the passage the rest of this chapter, notice what it says. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive. Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them.” Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.
So some of those rooms must have contained grain for some of these animal seed. Some of those rooms contain hay or whatever it is that they put in these places for these animals to eat. There was a lot to be done in this ark. And notice the last phrase there. Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him. Not just a little bit of what God commanded. He did everything that God commanded. That’s one of the lessons we learn from Noah is to do what’s right even when everything else in the world is a problem. I’m going to do the right thing.
You know how long it took Noah to build the ark? It took him 120 years. 120 years of his life he spent working building this ark. I can imagine he, like we do, might have said at times, “God, did I hear you say that right? Did I get that straight? Do you really want me to do this? Because it sure doesn’t look like it right now. This is such a big job I don’t know that I’ll get done.” I’m sure that he had questions, especially when he was interacting with people.
You see 2 Peter 2:5 says that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. So that what that means is that during the day Noah is out there building an ark and during the evening he was going into town. He was preaching righteousness. Do the right thing. It's such a refreshing message. It's such a refreshing message if your heart is in the right place. To hear someone come in and say do the right thing. You go, “Yes, I want to do the right thing.” However, if your heart is in the wrong place “do the right thing” is such a harsh message. It feels so bad it makes you just…it makes you angry when someone else says to do the right thing.
“It’s going to rain,” Noah said. And you can imagine people laughing. What is rain? What do you mean it’s going to rain? What does that look like? Why are you building that huge thing in your backyard? I’m sure in the same way that people today look at Christians and they often say about Christians that Christians are not as intelligent as non-Christians or atheists or humanists. They laugh at Christians because of the things they do sometimes. Are you willing to have the same kind of hero-like quality that Noah did and obey God in everything, even though people are reacting to the situation? That’s one of the things that made Noah a tremendous hero.
Let’s go on and let’s jump in chapter 7. It says – Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals. Now notice also before He talked about two, and this is to keep all these animals alive when they come out of the ark. So you have all these different species according to their kind able to continue on. However there are some animals that He wants to have seven of every kind. So that’s where we are now.
He says – Take seven pairs of clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” And… Here we are again. Mark this. If you’re taking notes in our booklet that you have then you want to mark these verses because hear it again. Here’s why we view Noah as a hero. It says – Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. He obeyed.
The reason we have seven of each of these animals is because they’re going to use them for food for human consumption. They’re going to have the birds. They’re also going to use it as a sacrifice when they get off the ark. So some of the animals he has more than just two of as he’s filling the ark with all of these different things.
Let’s go on to verse 6. It says – Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.
You know there’s going to come a time when all of the people on the earth laughed at you because you’re a Christian or because you were doing the right thing or because you wouldn’t cut corners, there’s going to come a time when it’s going to be true and be seen as true that you did what was right. 120 years is a long time to wait. But there came a time when it was clear that Noah was right.
He goes back to summarize now. Starting in verse 11 of chapter 7 he says this: In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. Now we’re given specific timeline here so we know how many days he was in the ark. Because he wasn’t in the ark for forty days. It was a lot more than that. It says that notice the fountains of the great deep burst forth. So water came up from the ground it talks about. Okay? And it rained forty days.
On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut the door.
These people are about to go into a storm and God shut the door. If you’re about to go into a storm in your life or you’re in a storm right now, I want you to know that the safest place to be in a storm is right in the center of God’s will. If you’re obeying God, if you’re doing what God says then any storm that’s going on outside is not going to be overwhelming. Oh yeah, it might harm you. Yeah, there’s going to be bad things. Christians go through bad things. But we do so with the safety of God inside of our hearts, protecting that peace and that joy and that love that we have. The safest place in the midst of a storm is to be right in the center of God’s will.
Well let’s go on here. A couple more things I want to share with you. The flood continued forty days on the earth. Now I want you to understand that this flood, the water from the rain came down for forty days, but Noah and his family were in the ark for 371 days. So he had a lot of water coming down, but it just created this deluge so the water rose and rose, but it took a long time for the water to settle. They were in that ark for a long time.
It says – The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. This is a universal flood. Not a local flood. A universal flood. All of the mountains on the whole earth were covered with water. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed over the earth for 150 days.
After that 150 days they started to recede and come down. 371 days they were in the ark. That’s a long time. A long time to be sheltering in place. A long time to be in that one place. Yeah, it’s a big ark, but it’s taken up with animals. I’m sure it got smelly. I’m sure they got tired of being with each other, eight people in that ark. They were sheltering in place. I was just thinking about here’s the first incident in history where people had to shelter in place and they couldn’t go out and do what they wanted to do. 371 days we see using the calculations that are here and in the next chapters.
I was thinking about that this week. I was just pondering this sheltering in place and our quarantine and 371 days. You know the sheltering in place orders took place last March. By the end of March, by about March 29th most of the states in the United States had issued some kind of a decree to everyone you need to shelter in place and not go out unless necessary. I was thinking wow, that’s really interesting. If you take March 29th and you go 371 days forward… This is like a random thought. This is not biblical. I’m not prophesying anything. I’m just saying this. If you go 371 days from March 29th this year when they put sheltering in place, do you know what day you come to? You come to Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021. Now what does that mean? I have no idea. And who knows what’s going to happen between now and then. Wouldn’t it be great if everybody was able to come out into the sunshine and enjoy the not sheltering in place by Easter of next year!
Sheltering in place has so many opportunities for growth. Often we see in the Bible that the times of confinement, the times of wilderness, the times of not having what you want and not having the freedom what you want often will lead to growth and development in a person’s life.
For example, we’re going to see just in the book of Genesis alone Jacob is going to run away from his family. It's going to be over twenty years he’s going to be in Laban’s property and over there away from his brother Esau because he tricked his brother he’s afraid his brother is going to kill him. So he goes over there. Finally that time is up. He’s going to come back. But during that time, what had God done? God had built him a family. God had given him wealth. And now he’s coming back and he’s meeting Esau with all of this fear and trepidation, but Esau is loving and wants to welcome him back and there’s this great unifying experience that takes place with Esau in those moments. Jacob.
Joseph was another one. Many years he spent in slavery and then in prison and in Potiphar’s house. All these things that were on this track because he was separated from his family because of sin and brokenness that took place in that story, which we will look at. Yet in the midst of that, God was working in that sheltering in place experience for Joseph where he didn’t have all the things he wanted, yet God was doing some very important things in his heart and brought him to a place where God can use him even more and in an even more powerful way than He could use him in the beginning.
God wants to work in our lives right now. We can’t be saying, “Oh life is going to be great when I get out of this.” “Life is going to be great when I have children.” Those people soon say, “Life is going to be great when they go to school.” And then they say, “Life is going to be great when they move out of the house.” Hey, life is going to be great right now. Life is not going to be great when the shelter in place orders are done, when the quarantine is over, and we don’t have to wear masks anymore. Right now we can experience God’s grace in our lives that we never could otherwise. There are beautiful things going on right now.
I was talking to Ed Miller this week. He is eager to come back and do some things at Calvary Chapel with us because he says this: This is such a powerful time to do outreach in our world. There are so many things going on in our world that are negative. Our world is going down and down and down, but we have a light that shines brighter as it gets more dark. And that light is Jesus Christ. It’s something that we can enjoy, we can experience. I want to encourage you to look at a hero like Noah and that space between where you are and where God wants you to be. And you’re looking at that and emulating that in your life. Oh that’s the exciting place. That’s the place that we learn from God’s word and we say wow, God is doing some good things in our lives and wants to continue to do that.
Would you stand with me and let’s pray together.
Heavenly Father, we ask that you would continue to work in our hearts. That you would teach us, lead us, you’d guide us, and inspire us to live today in spite of society’s restrictions. In spite of society’s putdowns, even in the laughing that people do of us, Lord, we know that we’re following you and it’s the right thing to do. Lord, give us the courage to do that every day. We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.
